OS X’s system-wide dictionary and spell checking service is very helpful, especially when you need to add custom words to the dictionary. But how can you delete or edit those custom words if you add them by mistake?
In the last few weeks there have been two solutions released for this problem: Pariahware’s Dictionary Editor application, and Two AM Software’s Dictionary Cleaner preference pane.
These are both very basic applications – the Dictionary Editor application doesn’t even have a custom icon – and as such they’re fairly similar. Both let you add and delete words from the custom dictionaries for any languages that have custom dictionaries installed, the Dictionary Editor also allowing existing words to be edited. Neither of them translate the language codes into regular words – the “English” and “Australian English” dictionaries on my machine were listed as “en” and “en_AU” respectively – but these are fairly easy to figure out unless you use a truly huge number of different languages at once.
That said, they appear to do the job of editing the custom dictionary perfectly well. Something I’d like to see in future versions is the ability to import and export word lists so we could export a list of all the words in the dictionary or import a list to add a lot of custom words at once, but all the basic functions are present. Both apps are also free, so users are hardly in a position to complain!
- Ricky Buchanan
Nice for the custom dictionary, but how can I remove “incorrect” words from the basic Mac Dictionary? E.g. when I type the “internet” anywhere in an application, browser, etc. it auto-corrects to “Internet”. The word “internet” doesn’t need to be capitalized.
Same thing when I type “website”…it auto-corrects to “Web site” which is really dumb. Neither of these are in my custom dictionary, so where the heck are they and how can I remove them? Thanks.
Larry
@Larry: The basic Mac dictionary doesn’t do any auto-correcting. If this is happening everywhere – not just, for example, in MS Word, then you probably are seeing the results of the TextExpander, Typinator, or TypeIt4Me shortcut programs. There are a few others, I think, but those are the main 3. Have you installed any shortcut expanding programs or new preference panes?
Thanks so MUCH!! TextExpander comes with TidBITS (auto-correcting dictionary and as soon as I removed that feature, everything worked great. FWIW, I googled this until my fingers hurt…put the question in a dozen Mac help forums, and no one even had a clue. Thanks again!
Larry
@Larry: I’m glad we could help. There’s a fair bit of knowledge down here at ATMac!